Science (non) Fiction

You Are Aurora! (A.K.A. Sleeping Beauty.)

Thoughtful and loving. Authority figures probably have been sheltering you all of your life. Thankfully you’re a very tranquil person who is content with what life has given you, but secretly you want to know how the outside world works.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

That fits, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s the day before halloween and I still can’t find the part of my costume that I know is somewhere in my house - so I’m off to Target to buy a replacement, since it’s needed tomorrow!

Homecoming at MHC was great - I got to stay with a former prof of mine (she’s fabulous!) and got caught up on all the school goings-on - saw several other faculty Sat (all very influential for me) and of course, my Gamma girls! I was in a local sorority while in college and some of my fondest college memories are wrapped up in Gamma activities! It’s definitely true what they say, you can’t really go back (and have it quite the same) - it was really the girls that were in the sorority at the time that made it what it was to me, so going back and seeing all the new girls is strange and surreal - not to mention that it makes me feel incredibly old…But I got to see several of the girls who were my closest friends, and that made the whole trip worthwhile! Also got to hear the choir concert, and it was great - they sound really good - I miss that really rigorous choral performance that we used to have in college…

Returning to Winston, I quickly changed and headed to a halloween party - unfortunately, for all Sat activities, I either forgot my camera or the memory card, so I have no pics - will hopefully got some from others…Anyway, halloween party at Captain Mike’s compound in Lewisville (boonies) - lots of fun, I only really got dressed up (not costumed), and stayed up WAY too late, even with the time change, so I’m hoping to head to bed earlyish tonight…

That’s all for now - busy week ahead, and the beach trip this weekend, so I hope I’ll have time to post a bit before then…

The graduate student rotating in our lab (who I’ve been mentoring for 8 weeks) got 2 sets of good results today in lab - another example of how good God is! She was having a horrible day/week, even going so far as to break down a little this morning, so these results come at the perfect time, especially as she has to give a short presentation next week on what she’s accomplished while here - great timing! I would just like to point out that I, unlike my student, have gotten crappy to mediocre results all week - but seeing her face today and hearing her get excited about it and tell the boss was totally worth any frustration!
In other news, I’ve decided to go to homecoming, but only for Fri/Sat - but Dr. Croom (former biology prof at MHC) has offered to let me stay with her again, so that will be great to catch up with her especially, and other profs/friends there as well - hopefully I’ll make it back here in time to go to the YAF halloween party Sat night - but I’m still a little iffy on my costume situation, so we’ll see…

I bought myself flowers today at the Teeter (yellow roses with reddish tips - yummm) - and almost every person coming into the lab today has asked about them - and rather than making up a story I’ve said, I bought them, or They’re just for fun, etc… and they all seem somewhat disappointed… which is making my nice, happy flowers into somewhat depression flowers, but oh well - they still smell/look pretty!

I have triumphed over the evil forces that have frustrated my attempts to have my luggage repaired/replaced after being lost and damaged on my flight back to NC - I finally talked to a live person today at Raleigh/Durham who is sending a replacement bag for me to pick up at PTI (G-boro airport) - now I just have to drive to PTI and swap my bag for theirs - so maybe by this weekend this whole thing will just be an ugly memory… persistance pays off, the squeeky wheel gets the grease, etc…
In other news, I think we’re carving pumpkins at YAF this week, so that should be fun - and I don’t think I’m going to go to homecoming - it’s just too much traveling and with the beach trip the following weekend, too much time away from here - maybe I’ll just pop down to Charlotte for a while to see my parents and brother…
Our commissioning ceremony for Family Services Volunteering is tonight - sounds a bit cheesy but it should be a good way to wrap things up now that training is officially over!
Off to make some serious scientific discoveries before the day is up (not really, but a positive attitude is helpful!)…

only to discover that the strains I started growing last night (which is why I came in early - to get them re-started this morning before going to work out) did not grow!!!! Grrrrr… oh well, at least I have tomorrow before I have to talk with my boss…
A few small things…

I’m still in the midst of ‘discussing’ my luggage situation with United - the last person I talked with left me with some hope that they will actually do something, but she had to talk to her boss, so she’s supposed to call me today - we’ll see…

I saw ‘In her shoes’ with Becky late Sat night - and it was quite funny and much better than I expected - I could even tolerate Cameron Diaz in it, and I loved everyone else in it (Toni Collette, Shirley MacLaine, etc) - it was laugh-out-loud funny - but maybe only for girls…

My brother starts a new part-time job today - I called him this morning and he was stuck in traffic on 485 going around Charlotte - good luck today Macks!

My alma mater’s homecoming is this weekend, and while I was planning to attend, I’m still not really caught up from the Seattle trip, so I don’t know that I can justify another weekend away - plus that’s another sub for nursery that I’d have to find, and the beach weekend is the weekend after, so I’m already going to have to find one for that - speaking of nursery though, I got recruited to help out in the 1st grade (well, I think it was 1st grade - maybe kindergarten - they were 5 years old) since one of their teachers was out and we had 4 adults in my nursery room - and it was a nice change of pace, but I definitely like the younger kids (ie 6-18 months) better - I guess they’re not as cute once they can start talking back…

Oh, and congrats to Andie and Chuck on the new baby girl - I don’t know them very well (actually I only barely know Andie and don’t know Chuck at all) but I’ll be praying for y’all!

And I got a new praise/worship CD from Sovereign Grace Ministries - it’s really good and I like this one especially:

This Fathomless Love

Lord what moved Your heart
To love lowly man
Before any star could
Herald Your praise
And why did You come
Abasing Yourself
Veiled in a robe
Of frail human clay
Why would You the pure
Give Your life for the vile
The innocent Seeking the guilty
To be reconciled

Chorus
I can’t comprehend
This fathomless love
I’m gripped and amazed
At what You have done
Why would the Adored
Become the despised
To bear all the furious wrath
That was mine
How awesome this mystery
of Your fathomless love for me

Why would You adopt
And take as Your own
Those who had crushed
Your one precious Son
Why mercy and grace
Towards Your enemies
Your name they have cursed
And Your throne they have shunned
Oh how could You choose
To show kindness to these
The ones who would
Mock You and hate You
The ones just like me

So I’m finding out how funny this book is in spots (certainly not all the way through - it’s quite depressing in places…) - here are two favorites from the last part I read last night:

“Cramped in all kinds of dun cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young man into Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.”
Such a good description - I feel like I’m there as he’s talking about the bank…

“The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley, Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) ”
This part just cracks me up (the Anna Dominoes part) - kind of Monty Python-ish…the rest of the chapter is about Mr. Cruncher’s home life, which is also funny (but disturbing)…

OK, more random Seattle trip pics…

On the way back to camp Sat morning (after spending the night near Seattle) we stopped at Bea’s Flowers, which is a field of dahlias (I think) in some lady’s yard and you can pay $1 and pick 5 flowers - good deal, since some of these flowers were HUGE! So here are a few of my faves

Bunny that was in the field of dahlias - there were actually at least 3 that we saw - but this is the only one that held still long enough for me to get a pic

Dawn’s back in front of the field of flowers - and that’s only part of the field - it was quite large - they even provided scissors to cut them…

OK, I’m going to try some more pictures - I figure I’ll try the ones from the aquarium the day we went into Seattle - went by way of the ferry, which was awesome - really good views and no long car ride with frustrating parking situations… So here goes…

Cute bird - he could hide his whole head and very long beak under his wing - and this exhibit was outside, so he had his own little heating lamp (which is why he’d kind of reddish)

One of the coolest parts of the aquarium - this tank of jellyfish that was a circle of clear (very thick) plastic and went above your head and below your feet and jellyfish went all around it - soooooo cool! Plus the lighting changed colors, so they looked different all the time - here’s Emily standing in the middle of the circle looking at the jellyfish

Puffins are one of my fave birds (’there once was a puffin, who ate only muffins…’)- this one’s blurry, cause he was apparently in the middle of bathing when I snapped it - but still adorable!

This one’s kind of gross, but very cool - this huge starfish was eating the animal inside that shell that seems to be stuck to the center of the starfish. Starfish ‘eviscerate’ or throw their stomachs out of their bodies to eat their prey, so that clearish stuff at the center is actually it’s stomach, startingto digest the animal that used to live inside that black shell - cool, eh?

OK, I’ll try more later…

OK, the link to the photos isn’t working (thanks Daniel/Alexa!) so I’ll try to fix that, and eventually get back to my trip story, but right now I’m so irritated I can barely see straight!!!!! My bag got lost on the way back from seattle (sent to Alaska) and when it was returned 24hr later, the zipper was broken and it smelled like a fish crawled inside and died - ick! So now I’m struggling with the airlines (I hate United!) about getting some kind of reimbursment/repair for my bag…it’s very frustrating and I’m not good with confrontation, even when I know I’m right… oh well… updates soon…

All right, I’m done with trying to get the pics uploaded here - I put them on webshots (check them out here) so I’ll just continue with my story on my next post and you can check out the pics there!